Hi there!
If this is your first visit to the Frontier Forums, be sure to check out the forum rules and guidelines..
You will need to create an account on our forums before you can post to, create discussions, or interact in our community. To start viewing discussions on the Frontier Forums, select the forum that you want to view from the selection below.

The Formidine Rift Expedition 3302

The Formidine-Rift has been the destination of numerous single-expeditions since the book Elite : Reclamation was published two years ago. Rumours of something hidden there have driven commanders as far as the mysterious Bovomit-Sector nearly 20 kly from Sol. Unfortunately nothing was found by these pioneers of the southern galactic rim. Even concerted efforts during spring and early summer 3302 by several groups failed to uncover any of the secrets that are confirmed to be hidden there.

Activities seemed to die down during July 3302 when suddenly a GALNET-article incited new interest by pointing to the EAFOTS sector. EAFOTS is connected with all the clues we already had: The Heart and Soul nebulae, the Reorte-Riedquat-Line, and the very eastern edges of the Formidine Rift itself. It also sits right on the edge of CoRs Rift border patrol waypoints - pinpointed by Salomé herself who tasked the Children of Raxxla to set up two listening posts and patrol the region back in May 3302 (Phase I of the Rift Initiative).

Commanders are already searching this special sector but a detailed look at EAFOTS with the help of CMDR Jackie Silver has made it clear that this is an endeavour that needs a more organized and concerted approach. The sector is huge, we are looking at a cube of approximately 1280 x 1280 x 1280 lightyears and easily more than 400.000 systems.

The Children of Raxxla, who since their founding have dedicated themselves to exploration and investigating the galaxies mysteries, have thus decided to mount an expedition that will try to explore as much of the EAFOTS-Sector as possible, using the insight CMDR Jackie Silver has given us in the sub-organization of sectors. We are further narrowing the search-areas of this mysterious region by clues we have already gotten.

Doing it this way we are sure that we will be more successful than before.

We’re therefore inviting other groups and commanders to take part our search efforts. Together we might finally find what’s hidden out there!

THE SEARCH AREA

THE BASECAMPS

We have scouted four new basecamp-systems on the corners of the EAFOTS cube at the height of the Reorte-Riedquat-line (+48 ly on the Z-axis). The basecamps are to be used as meeting-points or rally-points. Each landing site is easy to find and has a flat surface that allows even bigger ships good landing spots.

We are determined to do our best to finally uncover the Formidine Rift Mystery. As the search-areas distance from Sol varies between 7.5 - 8.5 kly it is easily reachable in a decent timeframe even for exploration-ships with unmodified jumpranges.

Ship build is up to the participants, there are no recommendations from us in that respect.

The search is to commence on Saturday August 20th and will last for 1 week per assignment.

The whole expedition is scheduled for a preliminary ten weeks until October 29th, 3302.

1. We’ve created a spreadsheet with the help of Jackie Silver. Its use enables us to keep track of what has already been explored and possible findings. The spreadsheet can be found here.An explanation how to use it is included in the sheet. If anything remains unclear you can message CMDR TheTick who has volunteered to take care of the sheet.

2. Individual exploration. We however recommend the use of a commanders-log like EDDiscovery to keep track of your path.

We should at first search in regions which are connected to the existing hints so far, e.g. the Heart & Soul nebulae, or the galactic plane (between -25 and +75 lightyears Z-axis, because of the fixed z-axis of the RR line) where the star density is the highest and jump distances are not too big. The search priorities / prioritized sub-sectors are already made clear in the sheet.

When entering a new system please use the following exploration routine:

1. Advance Discovery Scanner (“Honk”),2. Scan main star, meanwhile look at the system-map to get an overview of the planets,3. Look at the navigation-tab to detect persistent USS,4. Detailed surface-scan of interesting planets / moons, watch out for USS while supercruising. Please check the planet descriptions after scanning and watch out for anything out of the ordinary,5. After being finished jump to the next system.

EDIT:
Scan every ammonia-world and gas-giants with ammonia-based life and fly into near-orbit. There are confirmed free-floating Unknown Probes that show up as "Anomaly - Threat Level 2"-USS in near orbit. Report such findings here and in the sheet!

EDIT 8/28/2015:
Based on Drew Wagars interview with DJTruthsayer we have altered the directive a bit. All participants please take note:

- Please give more attention to star constellations and skybox-patterns; they might give a clue
- if you are checking systems please only focus on the E and D mass-code prefixes for now.
- focus less on scanning individual planets.

Commanders, great work until now. Your progress is clearly visible in ED Starmap! (pic courtesy of CMDR KRONFROMGALVATRON)

AMENDMENT August 30th, 3302

Due to the very recent discovery of a crashed alien ship in the Pleiades we now strongly encourage every pilot leaving human-inhabited space not to go unarmed or even unarmed and unshielded! This is for defensive reasons only. Nobody knows where the ship came from but this first confirmation of an advanced space-faring alien lifeform is inspiring and worrying at the same time. If anyone out in EAFOTS makes first-contact please don't shoot first. Just be prepared to defend yourselves if things go wrong.

We are expecting to receive further hints / clues in the course of the next weeks. Adaptation of the search routine might be necessary.

CoR have been informed that Salomé herself will be present during one of the patrol weeks (no time frame given as yet) - this is to help with the search but also to commemorate the Children of Raxxla's 1 year anniversary which will coincide with this mission directive.

I was out there last week and can deliver a list of about 250 systems gone through.
PM in Fleet Comms for the sheet.
.
Also signed up for all weeks... but may need to return or extend outward from the area at various times for other commitments.

I'm interested in taking part but the times I can be there are up in the air right now - I also want to help with events at Jaques. I'm probably safely in the top 10% of the mining CG but I'm hopeful that more will be taking place soon. Also, once I leave Jaques I would like to visit the borders of Hyponia, so it might be a while before I reach Eafots sector. The Formidine Rift mystery is one I haven't got involved in and I would like to change that so I'll sign up but my timing will be provisional. I might also come and go between Eafots and the bubble, as I would prefer to be exploring in my Asp or Python, rather than my Anaconda.

As much as I want to support this, I kind of doubt that Frontier would expect a dragnet approach, especially if the UP audio spectrograph is in any way related. It seems far more likely the mystery would be solved by using a logical approach than a sweeping survey approach. And without the proper tools/items/search-method you could even pass through the system and not notice what "it" is.

As much as I want to support this, I kind of doubt that Frontier would expect a dragnet approach, especially if the UP audio spectrograph is in any way related. It seems far more likely the mystery would be solved by using a logical approach than a sweeping survey approach. And without the proper tools/items/search-method you could even pass through the system and not notice what "it" is.

Given the choice of leaning back and wait for solid clues or start the search knowing that even if you get to the right system, scan the right planet, set down and drive around in your SRV for hours, days, weeks, and months and still miss the "it", some just doesn't like to wait

Sometimes I think that FD forgets what a big place the galaxy really is.

I am definitely not advocating for people to start "leaning back and doing nothing". Grinding 400,000 systems actually sounds like a whole lot of nothing. Even if you limit a system search to a 15 minute cursory supercruise glance, that's still about 100,000 man hours of nothing.

If you had an organized way to divide the work load, so that you that they didn't accidentally overlap on anyone else's search grid, and you had 100 CMDRs each working 8 hour search shifts each day, it would take about 4 months just to map the whole sector. Never mind doing a thorough search.

Yes, there's the rub -- once the answer is found, that "logical approach" may become apparent in hindsight. "See, all you needed to do was notice X and Y but not Z..." But until that inspiration comes to me in a dream, I've signed up for the survey and will take it week by week depending on real life commitments. I also believe it's quite possible we will be no further ahead even after a comprehensive detailed scan of every asteroid and iceball in the sector -- there is a big picture we're just not seeing. I lean towards the theory that we'll find evidence of some kind of ancient large-scale technology -- planetary or stellar engineering, wormholes, that type of thing, which may not even be terribly useful in the short term. But hey, I've been wrong (once or twice) before!

I am definitely not advocating for people to start "leaning back and doing nothing". Grinding 400,000 systems actually sounds like a whole lot of nothing. Even if you limit a system search to a 15 minute cursory supercruise glance, that's still about 100,000 man hours of nothing.

If you had an organized way to divide the work load, so that you that they didn't accidentally overlap on anyone else's search grid, and you had 100 CMDRs each working 8 hour search shifts each day, it would take about 4 months just to map the whole sector. Never mind doing a thorough search.

Personally I don't think that what we're looking for will be found using this kind of brute force method. For me ... that isn't the point. A large part of this is simply the social aspect of working together on a common goal. Bigger than that though is my very strong belief that more hints and clues will be coming and every single one of those is going to narrow down the search until the object of our pursuit becomes apparent. When that happens I want to be HERE out near the RIFT so that I can participate in that story. I'm going to be out here in the Rift for a while so I might as well be actively involved in something that is at least more productive then simply wandering aimlessly by myself.

Personally I don't think that what we're looking for will be found using this kind of brute force method. For me ... that isn't the point. A large part of this is simply the social aspect of working together on a common goal. Bigger than that though is my very strong belief that more hints and clues will be coming and every single one of those is going to narrow down the search until the object of our pursuit becomes apparent. When that happens I want to be HERE out near the RIFT so that I can participate in that story. I'm going to be out here in the Rift for a while so I might as well be actively involved in something that is at least more productive then simply wandering aimlessly by myself.

The social aspect is what does it for me too - I very much enjoyed the whole DWE thing, met lots of new friends, and seeing familiar faces pop into a station, or into a system in random part so of the galaxy is quite awesome.

I am definitely not advocating for people to start "leaning back and doing nothing". Grinding 400,000 systems actually sounds like a whole lot of nothing. Even if you limit a system search to a 15 minute cursory supercruise glance, that's still about 100,000 man hours of nothing.

If you had an organized way to divide the work load, so that you that they didn't accidentally overlap on anyone else's search grid, and you had 100 CMDRs each working 8 hour search shifts each day, it would take about 4 months just to map the whole sector. Never mind doing a thorough search.

Th eother thing is, you never know how thorough the other CMDR's are (or yourself, for that matter) compared to anyone else. I may pick up on somehting just simply because my monitor is better set up then someone elses, or because it's more obvious using a VR headset, or simply because I SC'd a slightly different way and something was better aligned.

No, I'm doing it for the social aspect, and if something is found, all the more awesome. I'm probably going to be going over all the clues on my flight to Asia next week, and working out my own theories to chase up, whilst checking to see how many have already been looked at. Though, really, I plan to go as far out as possible with as highly modded an FSD I can get, as fast as possible on the RR line, and then turn around and head toward RR (ie - come backwards). I'll probably come form sideways around the galactic spiral arm. I'm sur eit's been done, but I also want to mark some territory

I'm already out in Eafots exploring. I've been passing all my explored info to CMDR Leomaj and helping out the remnants of the Formidine Rift Expedition as much as I can. Let me know how I can help with this directive. I have an Asp with a 47ly jump range, and I'm currently checking stuff out above the 700 mark of the galactic plane.

Update - I need to return to the bubble and repair/refit. I will then kidnap a UA and a UP, then I will be returning to the rift.

I am definitely not advocating for people to start "leaning back and doing nothing". Grinding 400,000 systems actually sounds like a whole lot of nothing. Even if you limit a system search to a 15 minute cursory supercruise glance, that's still about 100,000 man hours of nothing.

If you had an organized way to divide the work load, so that you that they didn't accidentally overlap on anyone else's search grid, and you had 100 CMDRs each working 8 hour search shifts each day, it would take about 4 months just to map the whole sector. Never mind doing a thorough search.

Given the fact that "it" has been ingame since gamma and ought to be reachable by a clipper or cobra we think we can narrow down the workload a bit. It is absolutely clear to us that we will not be able to map the whole sector. But we might be more thorough around the already known clues like Heart&Soul and RR-Line than what we had before: single commanders jumping around in the sector more or less aimless (no pun intended). Mostly getting bored after a couple of days and returning to the bubble.
Hey Ziljan, just a few weeks ago you shot out one call to the arms after another for tasks that only few would do for hours and hours without getting bored. The social aspect made it a fun thing to do. It could be the same here.
And obviously we are waiting for the next clues too. Hopefully they will allow us to narrow down the search area. It's good to already have commanders in the area at that time to adapt quickly.

Personally I don't think that what we're looking for will be found using this kind of brute force method. For me ... that isn't the point. A large part of this is simply the social aspect of working together on a common goal. Bigger than that though is my very strong belief that more hints and clues will be coming and every single one of those is going to narrow down the search until the object of our pursuit becomes apparent. When that happens I want to be HERE out near the RIFT so that I can participate in that story. I'm going to be out here in the Rift for a while so I might as well be actively involved in something that is at least more productive then simply wandering aimlessly by myself.

You've nailed it

Drew is writing a new book, and some of that book will be based on player actions in-game. CoR, Rifters, and anyone else interested can play a part in the book. Sitting around doing little but waiting for the next clue is not a good way to tell this unfolding story. So CoR for one have a series of events planned via a series of directives given to us by Salomé herself, to help flesh out the story and create events and content for players to enjoy along the way. The directives are open to all who want in - not just CoR... and new clues are coming that will narrow down the search even further.

If we go back one year and look at how many players have searched the Rift from Bovomit to The Outer Arm Vacuus, from The Heart and Soul to the outer galactic rim, that was an enormous amount of space containing probably 100 million systems. The people who went out there last year and spent months looking would have killed for the name of the actual sector! Now we have it.

We've been given a clue to concentrate efforts, and yes it still contains a few hundred thousand systems, but the next clue may narrow the search down to a certain area of Eafots.. the point is players are starting to get a tangible grip on the mystery and we know that more clues will be coming during the coming weeks and months. What better way to have dozens, hopefully a few hundred, pilots in the area socializing and working together when those clues are revealed?

This is a chance for the exploration community to help write some of their in-game actions into Elite: Premonition by taking part in player created events that link directly to the galaxies' mysteries.